I’m looking through my notebook and remembered that back in February I was starting to develop a Buddhist-like ‘practice’ based on writing. I’m going to make another effort. It looks like I was onto something.
A few months ago, in search of discipline, I started copying out Upanishads during my breaks at work. My intention was to systematically work my way through the fundamental texts of the world’s great philosophical traditions (the answer is: no, I did not get very far — yet). I was using my notebook again and it reminded me of the many times in the past when writing in my notebooks was therapeutic.
On a few occasions, putting things in writing literally saved me. Writing provides something objective to work with, it makes us stop for a moment and think — really think – not merely orbit around vague hopes and fears. Sometimes writing can force us to realize that something is actually nothing, other times it can help you turn nothing into something.
While I was copying out those Hindu scriptures and thinking more about contemplative practice, I found that for the first time in months I was inclined to put a few thoughts in writing before bed. Not blog thoughts, notebook thoughts.
What’s the difference between blog thoughts and notebook thoughts? Apparently not much because I’m going to share some of those notebook thoughts on my blog:
… when I write I’m aware of every word. I should learn from that, generalizing the lesson to the rest of my life… Mindfulness: think about every step, every breath, every — this is the essence — every thought… The intention is that it becomes habit enough that consciousness becomes unconscious… I don’t know if that’s exactly right (how would I know before actually experiencing it?) but it’s instructive…
There’s something powerful about putting something in writing, or attaching a measurable value to something. Professional motivators, life coaches, and self-help gurus love it:
Goals!!!
They all build on the same basic premise: you gotta write stuff down, make plans, establish objectives, etc. David Allen is making a mint right now with Getting Things Done:
GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them externally. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks. [Wikipedia]
It doesn’t matter what it’s about — career, finance, diet, exercise, research, project management, pickup-artist strategies — every program begins and ends by setting things down in words and numbers.
My life has largely been the antithesis of that. I float freely, coming to things as they are, as I am, as it happens. For creativity, that has been an incredibly fruitful way of discovering a lot of great insights. There are many things that can’t be done with goals (I’ve made the case here, here, and here, and this post itself is something unplanned). But that only goes so far.
You might take a lot of this for granted but it’s foreign to me: budgeting, grocery lists, planning a weekend more than 16 hours in advance, schedules, outlines for essays and other projects… I don’t do any of it (e.g. I have 1669 emails in my inbox) — and I credit that openness for everything I’ve learned in the past seven or eight years.
Years of discovery were amazing but it’s time to put things in order. Time to organize my life: eat better, exercise, budget, schedule, plan, develop a routine, structure… And I’m putting this in writing so I’ll be more likely to stick to it.
(And any pointers are welcome.)
